


Bittersweet

by jillyfae



Series: Blood and Lyrium [5]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Western, Epistolary, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:20:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calculations and mis-steps, a ficlet collection for Theia Hawke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. almost trustworthy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'd had an anonymous request on tumblr for "Theia getting her hooks into Cullen, and against his better judgement, he likes sleeping with her."
> 
> And then [vieralynn](http://vieralynn.tumblr.com) prompted "jawline kiss" for F!Hawke/Cullen during a tumblr kiss meme ... which ended up with this.
> 
> (There may be a bit more Cullen in the Theia fic I am currently working on, but it's not ready for public consumption yet, so I'm afraid I can make no promises.)

She knows he doesn’t particularly like her.

She certainly doesn’t trust him, never, not a Templar.

And yet, he asks no questions, and he needs no words, and she knows she is the only one he can trust enough, for this, even if for nothing else.

He grips hard enough to bruise, wrists and hips and neck, the snap of his hips forceful enough to hurt as he fills her, her favorite sort of pain, though not the only he is capable of inflicting on her, when she asks, or when he begs, and she has lost more than one nail caught in his rug or against the edge of his desk or buried deep in the cloth of his shirt or the skin of his shoulder.

She forgets everything else as she comes, clenching around him, the world turning white or black behind closed eyes, until her shudders ease and she has to settle back into the real world.

She brushes one soft kiss against his jaw, and listens to him sigh, and straightens her skirts one last time before she leaves.

Until the next time.


	2. dysfunctional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merrill POV, for [codenamecynic](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/98476163618#notes)

Her eyes were blue.

Pale, like a winter sky, but not cold.

It would be safer if they were cold.

Instead they burned, so hot Merrill could feel the very air in her lungs try to crisp, her mouth go as dry as ancient paper, her tongue as fragile.

She could barely speak, caught in the heat of those eyes.

It was foolish, to let her in.

But it was such a brilliant fire, and the burn when their bodies came together was so exquisite.

Isabela and Varric worried so, voices low and eyes dark as they saw each new bruise, or scratch, or listened to Hawke’s beautiful terrible laugh, saw how tightly she gripped Merrill’s arm, how hot her eyes flashed, how sharp her smile curved.

But her blood was so sweet when they were alone, her magic an impossible endless chaotic swirl of power, and nothing, nothing had ever satisfied as the shudder of surrender when her eyes closed, and her body curved, and her voice turned rough and raw and screamed Merrill’s name in release.

Marethari would not approve.

Once that would have worried her, but now …

Now it made her smile.

Now it made her wonder what else she could take from Hawke, next time.

Wonder what else she could learn, that Marethari would never dare.

It was worth whatever Hawke learned in return, whatever pleasure she got from Merrill’s own hot skin and scalding blood and tangled roots of power.

Merrill, at least, never screamed, but kept her pleasure tucked tight inside her chest, her throat, until she could not hold in any longer, and begged, whisper soft, for Hawke’s cruel mercy.

Promised never to give her own in return, and kissed Hawke’s lips as she laughed.

_So beautiful, my little Hawke._


	3. almost trustworthy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a tiny alternate reality, prompted by [twistedsinews](http://twistedsinews.tumblr.com/) for a WIP meme on tumblr: _what if Carver hadn't come on the Deep Roads Expedition_

Hawke couldn’t see his hair.

Hidden by his new helmet, hidden by steel.

He’d always been so proud of his hair, thick and heavy, long enough to brush his shoulders, just like their father’s.

Somehow that made it real, more even than the uplifted sword on his chest.  He’d made his choice, to be something other than her brother, their father’s son, something other than a Hawke.

Ser Carver, with Templar red on his armor.


	4. petty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theia is not much of a letter writer; unless provoked.
> 
> ficlet for a diary/letter meme on tumblr, prompted by [leahazel](http://leahazel.tumblr.com/)

_Anders_

_My head is fine_

_You are using your status as my healer to be an arsehole_

_I’d say you should be ashamed of yourself, but it’s one of the few times you’ve shown some decent backbone of late, so_

_fuck it_

_congratulations, you’re an arsehole_

_making a sick woman with a sprained wrist write in a damn book to prove her head’s recovered from that nasty knock and she still remembers who she is and how to make words look like words_

_what is wrong with you_

_you’re just mad I won’t read your manifesto_

_or maybe it’s the time I had sex with a blood mage_

_or that other blood mage_

_or was it that time with the Knight-Commander?_

_but never you_

_hmm_

_yes_

_I think that’s your problem_

_you need to get laid_

_I could help you with that_

_not personally, of course, but I know some people who would find that scruffy rebel thing you’ve got going on rather charming_

_bet you pretend you never read this_

_bet you refuse to ever talk to me about it_

_bet you chuck it in the fire and swear and your fingers curl too tight until you can see the white in your knuckles, and you wonder, just for a minute, if someday that white will turn blue, when Justice is Vengeance and there’s no more Anders at all, and you’ll finally give me an excuse to boil the blood from your veins because you’re more damn trouble than you’re worth_

_never going to give me homework again, are you_

_bastard_


	5. Wild West Kink

When her magic came, Bethany started hiding.  Long sleeves, plain skirts, bonnets with large brims, eyes down, voice quiet.  She even developed a slow pace, using her staff for walking, so no one might consider she needed it for anything else.

Hawke didn’t understand why anyone would want to disappear into the shadows, but she did her best to help, to draw every eye her way and away from her beautiful little sister.  She indulged in bright colors, cinched waists, her blouse as low cut as she could get away with, (and she undid at least one more button as soon as her mother wasn’t looking), and she wore no bonnet at all.  A warm laugh, an easy smile, a sharp glance from strikingly pale eyes.  She rather enjoyed the attention, after all.

Liked knowing she was fooling them all.

She skipped a staff entirely, trusting her own will to keep her magic in check, to keep herself safe even when Father started feeling too tired to go with her into town.

The derringer up her sleeve and the knife strapped to the side of her leg helped with that, of course, especially after Father died and the slim specter of his protection faded from memory.  Burning the bodies to ash so no one ever found them was terribly satisfying, but didn’t tend to discourage the next drunken or greedy idiot.

That’s what the Marshal was for.

She’d stop by the Marshal’s office so he could bend her over his desk before she ran her errands.  He was as proprietary as any man about where he liked to stick his cock, and he seemed to enjoy thinking she needed his protection, felt proud and strong and positively heroic for taking her side the few times some scuffle escalated too far.

Luckily he was much better with a gun than his cock, or it wouldn’t have been worth the effort.

But he stayed too distracted by the way her skirt hugged her ass to ever bother wondering about her family’s odd habits, or her sister’s wide dark eyes and soft half-hidden smile.


	6. tease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kiss on the hips, for [janie](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/117790202988)

She’d been planting, or some such, until Hawke interrupted her, asking her questions and teasing her about her answers.

Merrill had tried to ignore her, for awhile, continuing to dig out cobblestones and mix the muck she’d dragged up from Darktown into the sandy soil of the Alienage, until her nails were positively filthy, chipped and ragged and black. 

Eventually, Hawke managed to be just rude enough to make Merrill lift her head and glare, and then Hawke lifted her eyebrows, and licked her lips.

It was only a few steps to Merrill’s home, only a few moments to step inside, and latch the door behind them.

Merrill’s hands left streaks down Hawke’s sides as she slid Hawke’s leggings down, her breath hot against Hawke’s skin as she murmured something in elvish, half swearing, half endearment, if previous experience was anything to go by.

She nipped, too sharp for comfort, and Hawke bit her lip to hold in a groan, let her head fall back against the rough wood wall with a soft thud. Merrill laughed, low and quiet, and let her lips press against Hawke’s hip, soft and warm and soothing.

Hawke smiled, and let her fingers tangle in Merrill’s hair, tugging until Merrill lifted her chin enough to look up into her eyes.

“Alright,  _lethallan,_ let’s play.”


	7. unkindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ["without really meaning it" a _how to say I love you_ prompt from servantofclio](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/157846630143)

She remembered the weight of a hand pushing back her hair, a brush of lips against her forehead, the rough brief tickle of beard, a whispered “sweet dreams, poppet” that became, as she grew older, more an order edged with steel than any sort of kindness.

_Keep them sweet, or else._

Not that she could remember kindness. Her father's eyes were too dark, his brows too heavy, his mouth too still, in all her memories, for them to ever truly be smiling.

Not for her. 

For her mother, yes. For her brother and her sister, always, though it was edged with fear after her sister’s magic came in.

Fear _for_ her sister.

It was an entirely different sort of fear caught in his eyes when he looked at her. But still he pretended, every night when he tucked them in, that his smiles were the same for all of them.

Her mother insisted on it, after all, reminisced about sweet cakes and hugs good-night and all that time they used to spend together, riding on his shoulders when she was small, bent over a book together when she grew too tall.

Her mother lied.

To herself, mostly, as if repeating a pleasant fiction enough times could make it so.

Perhaps that was the only way her mother knew to survive the world she lived in, the husband who certainly never provided anything resembling the life she’d expected, who never once knew what to do about their eldest daughter.

Besides lie.

She learned to lie too, small and careful at first, so no one would catch her, no one would suspect. Just enough to keep her father quiet, if not happy. Just enough to keep her mother ignorant, convinced everything was going to be all right.

Somehow.

Until it wasn’t, until it was obvious it would never be all right again, and she managed her greatest lie of all.

“Goodbye father,” she spoke, soft and sweet, but not too soft, loud enough to carry, loud enough her mother would hear, before the flames of the pyre grew loud enough to drown out her sister’s more honest tears. “I love you.”


End file.
